30/11 Strikes.

vicisthebest said:
Didn't get the choice - the local authority gave us an extra day so school closed a day earlier for the summer holidays. I couldn't go to work when it was shut...
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Yes but my point is that like the strike, the royal wedding was still a day lost from term time. Wouldn't this amount to "punishing" them also?
 
vicisthebest said:
Well yes perhaps so... But that wasn't my decision to make, whereas this is... Did you not get that I'm NOT striking?
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No I acknowledged that you weren't striking. I was just contesting the claim that if you did it would be "punishing" children. Particularly in light that the effects of the royal wedding and the strike are similar, yet they aren't treated as equivalent by some people or the media.

For the record I support the strike and would encourage you to take part. ;)

mrbell1984 said:
Punishing who? Children?
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Yes, allegedly. Not my opinion of course...
 
All of our classes/labs have been cancelled for Wednesday though business as usual for technical staff since we rejected strike action over the latest pay offer (48% for, 52% against and 70% for work-to-rule). Taking the day off on annual leave though to avoid all the hassle of the picket lines and student protests, not that there'll be much work to do.

While our pension is separate to the public sector one it's usually linked to whatever they're offered so we're waiting to be targeted once the academic pension issue has been dealt with.
 
Richie said:
This seems to be the biggest issue in the whole Public v Private debate. The private pension people begrudge the fact that the public pension is better than their own and it sticks in their throats especially now that they have "seen their pots diminish in the past years"

What I would like to see answered by the zealots of this argument is this - Is it the public service workers that are to blame for the private pension pots to now be worthless?

You do realise that, unlike private pension schemes, public pension schemes do not rely on investment in the stock market to get good returns. Public pension schemes rely on the money coming in to sustain itself i.e. self sufficiency. It is not invested in other markets and the risk is therefore non-existent.

The area to "blame" for the private pensions is the stock market which has taken a huge drop in the past years resulting in loss of value of any pension schemes linked to them. Who is to blame for the poor investment choices for each respective pension fund? Fund Managers?
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One area of "blame" that you seem to be missing though is increasing life spans making pension provision much more expensive. In private schemes this is reflected in increased annuity costs which means for the same pension then either the company or the individual (or both) need to make increased contributions or the value of the pension needs to be reduced (or in most cases, all three).

As you quite rightly point out Public sector pensions are not always funded in the same way and come instead from either departmental budgets or general taxation. But at the end of the day the same thing applies, to keep the same pension then either the company or the individual (or both) need to make increased contributions. For the "company" this means that more money needs to come from departmental budgets. Which eventually means more taxation. Is it fair to ask the private sector working to pay more for his own pension whilst at the same time asking him to pay more (in the way of taxes) for the public sector workers pension?
 
Dolph said:
money taken under threat of force?
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The more absurdly worded your arguments become the less credibility you command in threads like this. Which is a shame because some of what you say is intelligent and well thought out, however it's almost completely cancelled out by rubbish statements like that.
 
No sympathy at all.

Last year I was told there was nothing the Union could do as they slashed my final salary pension.

I was set to get cica 18k per annum(on todays money) and only had to pay 1.5% towards it and company paid the rest now i have to pay 3% and will be lucky if it will be worth 6k per annum depending on annuities when I retire.
 
[TW]Fox;20662927 said:
The more absurdly worded your arguments become the less credibility you command in threads like this. Which is a shame because some of what you say is intelligent and well thought out, however it's almost completely cancelled out by rubbish statements like that.
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That tends to happen when people insist on taking the statement out of context or ascribing consequences to the statement that I have only advocated in their heads...
 
Dolph said:
That tends to happen when people insist on taking the statement out of context or ascribing consequences to the statement that I have only advocated in their heads...
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Time to command your upper body thinking part out of your lower evacuation conduct then. Also, I would be worried if I started to sound like groen ... with better prose, I give you that, but the message ...
 
Nah, I'm not striking. Need the money firstly. Secondly, I don't really need a union because I have really good bosses now. Some in my current work/dept are members but they're not striking either. I could have done with a union in my old though as I was bullied but their contract discouraged joining them.
 
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